September 21, 2024
News about the authorities releasing democracy activist Tran Huynh Duy Thuc quickly spread across social media platforms as well as overseas newspapers. However, an anonymous source said that Hoang Thi Minh Hong, a famous environmental activist, had also just been released at the same time as Thuc.
Hong and Thuc were released just hours before General Secretary cum State President To Lam arrived in the US and attended the Future Summit, 79th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
In addition, a few days before September 2, Dr. Hoang Ngoc Giao – a famous lawyer and critical intellectual – was also released after 21 months of detention on trumped-up charges of tax evasion. In early 2020, he called for the establishment of an “independent committee” in the National Assembly to investigate the raid by Vietnamese armed forces on Dong Tam commune as well as the death of veteran communist member Le Dinh Kinh. In March 2020, he was invited by the US to visit the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier off the coast of Da Nang.
Dr. Hoang Ngoc Giao
Engineer and businessman Tran Huynh Duy Thuc, 58 years old, a famous human rights activist, was arrested in May 2009. He and three other fellow activists, businessman Le Thang Long, lawyer Le Cong Dinh and IT master Nguyen Tien Trung, were all charged with “activities aimed at overthrowing the people’s government” in a trial held in 2010 that attracted special attention from the public, democratic governments and international human rights organizations. Thuc was sentenced to 16 years in prison and 5 years of probation.
After Thuc was arrested, people learned that he opened personal blogs such as Tran Dong Chan, “Change We Need” through “Chan Research Group” with research articles, analysis of the political, economic, and current events in Vietnam, promoting reform.
In recent years, international human rights organizations, the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union have condemned the imprisonment of Thuc as “contrary to the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights” and the sentence imposed on him as “a mockery of justice.” Thuc also refused political asylum in the United States as a condition for Hanoi to release him.
Detaining a talented, innocent person for nearly 16 years and releasing him (only) 8 months ahead of schedule, and just a few hours before Lam left for the United States.
Engineer, businessman Tran Huynh Duy Thuc
Nguyen Tien Trung, from Germany, also expressed his joy when he heard that Thuc was released eight months early. Trung told RFA:
“I was very surprised and also very happy that Thuc was released a few months early, before his 16-year term. However, for me, Thuc’s sentence is completely unjust and the 16-year sentence is incorrect, completely wrong by the Vietnamese government.”
In addition, Nguyen Tien Trung also expressed his concern about the current context of the democracy movement in Vietnam, when the government is increasingly cracking down:
“It is unfortunate that Thuc was released from prison at a time when the Vietnamese democracy movement is being most severely suppressed. Most of the prominent democracy activists have had to leave or have been arrested. This means that Thuc will face many difficulties when he returns, and there may be very few people left by his side to continue the fight in the country.”
Mr. Trung also emphasized that Thuc will need time to recover his health after a long period of detention, as well as to be able to reconnect with new activists in the democracy movement in Vietnam.
According to a Facebook post by Tran Huynh Duy Tan, Thuc’s younger brother, six days before his release from prison, Thuc told his family that a delegation from the US government had visited Prison Camp No. 6 in Thanh Chuong district, Nghe An province, to visit prisoner of conscience Bui Van Thuan, conveying his regards to Thuc along with the message “The United States is very interested in Vietnamese political prisoners.”
Environmental activist Hoang Thi Minh Hong
Hoang Thi Minh Hong is a famous environmental activist. In 2019, Forbes magazine voted her one of the 50 most influential women in Vietnam.
Hong was the first Vietnamese person to set foot on Antarctica in 1997, and became a UNESCO Young Envoy and received a Certificate of Merit from the Prime Minister in the same year.
She was also the first Vietnamese person to win an Obama Foundation scholarship at Columbia University in 2018-2019.
Environmental activist Hong is the founder and Director of CHANGE, a dynamic local non-profit organization with the mission of raising awareness and inspiring the community to protect the environment, wildlife, combat climate change, and promote sustainable development.
Also in 2019, she was one of five recipients of the Inspirational Ambassador award at the WeChoice Awards 2019; and won the Green Warrior of the Year title at the Elle Style Awards. In 2015, she was listed by climateheroes.org as a Climate Hero at the COP21 United Nations Climate Change Conference.
In 2018, on former US President Barack Obama’s personal Twitter account, he wrote that Hoang Thi Minh Hong (Hong Hoang) “is one of the young people who inspired him during the year.”
Previously, on June 1, 2023,. Hong was arrested on charges of “tax evasion,” a scenario that Hanoi had set up to convict other environmental activists such as Nguy Thi Khanh, Mai Phan Loi, Dang Dinh Bach, and Bach Hung Duong.
On September 28, 2023, the first instance court in Ho Chi Minh City sentenced Hong to three years in prison.
Hong’s arrest was condemned by the US, some Western countries and organizations such as the United Nations and Human Rights Watch.
Hieu Ba Linh (Compiled in Vietnamese)
